Category Archives: Typesetting

A documentary film, by www.digital-works.co.uk, based on oral history interviews with former printers and journalists. “There used to be a tradition in Fleet Street newspapers called “banging out”. It involved an employee, on the day he retired after a life-time’s stalwart service to his chosen rag, being walked by his colleagues through the presses in […]

I have just returned from the third Letterpress Workers International Summit, organised and hosted by Officina Novepunti. Located at Leoncavallo, Milan, between the 18th to 22nd June, the event was attended by international letterpress designers and printers, from as far afield as Mexico. A large selection of printing presses and collection of wood type were […]

Endless Letterpress is a documentary about present of woodtype presses in Argentina, filmed by Nicolás Rodríguez Fuchs. Sadly I discovered this film after the fundraising effort had ended but more information can be found at fb.com/losultimosdoc “Buenos Aires deepest suburbs, July 2013. Three old print shops disputes the printing of cumbia and boxing posters. Second […]

Of my earliest ancestry neither history nor relics remain. The wedge-shaped symbols impressed in plastic clay by Babylonian builders in the dim past foreshadowed me: from them, on through the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians, down to the beautiful manuscript letters of the mediaeval scribes, I was in the making. With the golden vision of […]

Here at Typoretum, we have embarked on an ambitious project to create a limited edition portfolio of experimental designs printed directly from wooden types. The book will be letterpress printed on Victorian printing machines and will feature over 200 individual wood type faces from the private collection of Justin Knopp, founder of Typoretum. The estimated […]

Over recent months I have greatly enjoyed following Bunkertype on Pinterest – http://pinterest.com/bunkertype/ – in part due to our common admiration and respect for the letterpress work of H.N. Werkman. Based in Barcelona, Jesús Morentin’s Bunkertype letterpress studio produces beautiful and experimental letterpress work in small editions manually from metal and wood types. Bunkertype on […]

Here is a great short film about Typoretum. An opportunity to see our presses in action and the craft of letterpress printing. Irish graphic designer and letterpress printer Jamie Murphy recently spent several months working here at Typoretum, developing his knowledge of letterpress typesetting and printing. As a thank you for his time here, Jamie […]

The history of Monotype dates back to the late 19th Century, when it introduced groundbreaking new technology that revolutionised the production of metal type for letterpress printing. Tolbert Lanston, the inventor of this technology and founder of The Lanston Monotype Machine Company, patented this mechanical typesetting system in 1887 and introduced the first hot metal […]

The London Centre for Book Arts is an open-access book arts studio, teaching facility and exhibition space in Fish Island, Hackney Wick, in East London. The first and only centre of its kind in the United Kingdom, LCBA provides access to specialist equipment and resources, including rare and historically important pieces, along with technical and […]